“Daddy, tell me the story about how I named myself,” I said one night, when he came to tuck me into bed.
At six years old, I’d heard the story many times, but it always seemed like telling the story made Daddy happy; so I asked often.
“You named yourself when you were nothing more than a tiny speck of cells growing inside Mommy,” he said. “Mommy and I were in a time machine, and we …”
“… could hear each other’s thoughts!” I jumped in.
“That’s right. We could hear each other’s thoughts, but only Mommy could hear you, because you were inside of her, and …”
“…and I told her my name.”
“Who’s telling this story?” he asked, and we both smiled.
I paused for a while; then asked a question I’d never asked before.
“How did I know my name?” I asked.
“You knew your name because it’s the name that God gave to you. He knew every hair on your head before you were even a speck of cells. He already knew that you’d name yourself after a friend of mine.”
“The lady from the videos?”
“That’s right. Her name was Jocie. I time travelled with her, and heard her thoughts, too.”
“Was she nice?” I asked.
“When I first met her, she wasn’t very nice at all. Later, when she knew more about Jesus, she was nicer.”
Daddy looked at me with a very serious face.
“I have something that belonged to Jocie that I’ve been planning to give to you when I was sure you could be responsible with it. If you can promise that you’ll always keep it safe, I’ll give it to you now.”
“I promise.”
He left the room and I heard him go into his office. When he came back, he had a small pouch.
“Hold out your hands,” he said.
He dumped the contents of the pouch into my hands. It looked like a pirate treasure of rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. There were also a lot of smoky, greenish crystals that seemed ugly compared to the rest.
“What are the ugly ones?” I asked.
“Those are the most important ones of all,” he said. “Those are our secret family crystals. You can never show them to anyone or tell anyone about them. Not even your brother.”
I placed all of the stones onto my bed and looked at them.
“I promise to keep the secret, Daddy, but I don’t want the family crystals. What if I lose them?”
Daddy picked up the crystals and put them into his pocket; then put all the pretty stones into the pouch.
“Okay. Then you keep the stones that belonged to Jocie, and I’ll keep the family crystals,” he said.”
Two weeks before he disappeared, I noticed that the pouch of gemstones I’d protected since I was six years old had been moved on the shelf in my bedroom. It was only moved a few millimeters, just enough so I’d notice. When I opened it, the family crystals were inside.
******
For the next hour, all we hear is Austin asking things like “Where do you think I’ll build it?” and “Do you think I’ll be meeting Christ, too?”
When Zera can’t take anymore, she speaks up.
“Have you forgotten that there are no more large native crystals of tellurium 120? Your Dad blew them all up before we were born.”
I reach back and touch my pack to be sure a small, outer pocket is zipped.
“We must find some,” Austin replies. “The bar of composite didn’t jump back in time all by itself.”
“Well, I don’t know where. The world’s minable supply was used sending your parents back and forth. There were barely enough left to even send the small package with vaccine.”
The little pouch of gems I’ve carried for most of my life …
“We can argue about it later,” I say. “Right now, the only idea I have of where to go next is to find someone named Amelia.”
“Doctor Amelia Lake?” Zera asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Who is she?”
“Her last name wasn’t ‘Lake’ at the time, but she was the member of Four who got her hands on the sample of the Mark of the Beast vaccine that she and your Aunt Cindi used to make The Washed vaccine that was sent back in time. She later became an expert on it and was named head of the Center for World Health. I met her once when she came to speak with my parents.”
“She spoke with your parents? Any idea why?” I ask.
“It was a family matter,” Zera replies. “My Mom also said Amelia had a thing for your Dad and your Mom was jealous.”
That might explain the fight between Mom and Dad … could it also explain Dad taking off his wedding ring? It can’t be. Dad would rather chew his own arm off than betray Mom.
We’ve entered the Ogallala tube station, and I go to a public computer terminal.
“Computer, please locate Amelia Lake, head of the CWH,” I say.
“Former head of the CWH, Doctor Amelia Lake, lives in Post Falls, Idaho,” the pleasant voice responds.
After an hour in a tube car, we find ourselves standing at her front door.
“May I help you?” she asks over the intercom.
“Doctor Lake? We need your help,” I say, and hear a sigh in response.
A few moments later the door opens. Amelia is a tall woman, with dark black hair, speckled by just a few that are gray. There are dark circles under her eyes that look like they were imprinted there through years of hard work and worry. She looks over our faces.
“You kids need to read your history books. I tried to help you. I failed.”
I reach up to my face and peel off the sticky, living scar.
“We have read the history books. We need to hear the things that were never written down.”
Her eyes widen - first with surprise, and then with curiosity.
“I think you’d better come inside,” she says.
We walk down a hallway and into a large living room, though it doesn’t appear that she’s doing any “living” here. The room is filled with tables, each covered with stacks of papers; and three of the walls contain ancient chalk boards. My eye is drawn to the fourth wall, which contains a projection of a world map with spots marked in various colors and dates.
“I’d love to know why three washed children need my help, but first: who do you work for?” Amelia asks.
We look at each other, then back at Amelia.
“Four,” I say.
“Shouldn’t you be out blowing things up?” she asks.
“That’s Albert’s job,” I say.
That got her attention.
“You do know your history …” she says, “… but you’re too young to be members of Four unless, someone went back on their word and started recruiting a new generation.”
“We’re not actually members,” Zera says. “Our parents were, and they’ve disappeared.”
“Your parents? Anyone I would know?”
“My mother is Zip, and this is Austin and Jocie Paulson.”
Amelia looks at each of us.
“It figures,” Amelia says, and looks at Austin. “If anyone’s children would be mixed up in current events, it would be all of their kids. I should have known when you showed me that scar material. Is that your Aunt Cindi’s work?”
“No, it’s mine,” I say. “What current events are you speaking about?”
“Current events, old events; what difference does it make? Nothing has really changed since I was with your parents in Four, except this time there might actually be a winner in the war,” she replies.
“What is it with people who were in Four?” Zera says. “My Mom barely told me anything; their father only works in puzzles; and now you! Why can’t any of you just spit it out?”
Amelia walks over to the fireplace and looks at a picture on the mantle. She’s wearing a wedding dress. The man in the picture is sporting a tuxedo - and a black line across his face.
“They say Cindi and I saved the Christian world,” Amelia says. “This room is testament to the fact that whatever we saved, it wasn’t worth saving. You want a lesson on unwritten history? Why don’t you go ahead and walk around this room? Let’s see if you can work a little of the Paulson family magic and put all of the pieces together.”
She leaves the room.
“I think everyone who was in Four went nuts,” Zera says.
I walk to the mantle and look at the wedding picture.
“She married a guy from The Corps,” I say. “Why would she do that?”
Zera says nothing, but rolls her eyes.
“Do you suppose they’re still together?” Austin asks.
I look over the other pictures on the mantle.
“He died,” I say. “In these pictures, it looks like he’s getting sicker as time goes on, and in one he’s in a hospital bed.”
She saved all of The Washed, but she couldn’t save the man she loved.
“This table is covered with her research on how to counteract the Mark of the Beast vaccine,” Zera says.
I walk to the wall with the world map projected on it. The points are marked in three different colors: there are black points that are concentrated around the equator in Asia and Africa; there are white points that are concentrated in the far northern and southern hemispheres; and there are red points that are mostly in North America and Western Europe. The oldest dates are the black marks, some of which are from when I was about six years old. The most recent date is in red. It’s from last month.
Austin walks over.
“What is this all about?” he asks.
“I’d say she traveled around the world looking for a cure. The question is: what was she looking for? Any clues over there, Zera?”
“I’m no biochemist, but it looks like she was obsessed with finding a sample of the toxin used in the Final Holy War.”
“Wasn’t it the same toxin that Henry Portman put into the water?” Austin asks.
“Apparently not,” Zera says. “After the war, all samples - and all information on how to make it - were destroyed by international agreement. The toxin Henry had was a best guess, but apparently not quite the same thing, especially when they took off the part used to target certain genes.”
“The black markers on the map are where the bombs fell,” I say. “She visited every site, looking for residue.”
“Then what are the white markers?” Austin asks.
“They’re all in cold places,” I say. “There are mountain tops and both poles. Maybe she was taking ice cores?”
“Neither the old toxin nor the new one could be made to be very heat stable,” Amelia says, from the doorway. “They break down in a couple of decades at room temperature. Ice cores were my best hope for finding a preserved sample.”
She crosses the room.
“The Mark of the Beast vaccine is like a slow-acting poison,” Amelia continues. “Those extra amino acids that Henry added to spell out his grandfather’s name aren’t merely unnatural. They’re toxic.”
“I never understood why the added part can’t be edited out of everyone,” Austin says.
“It was designed to be irreversible.” Amelia says. “We’ve tried everything we can think of to remove it, but it can’t be done without inactivating the vaccine part too.”
“Who cares?” Zera says. “The Corps no longer controls any toxin; so why not just use genetic engineering to un-vaccinate everyone?”
“Show time!” I say.
Amelia turns to me.
“You are definitely your father’s daughter,” she says.
“What does ‘show time’ mean?” Austin asks.
“When Dad was being tortured, just before Henry had the guards bring out the choice of toxin or vaccine, he touched his com and said ‘show time.’ He didn’t need a com to talk to the guards; so he must have been sending a coded message to someone else.”
Zera and Austin both give me expectant looks.
“Dad was there to delay the release of airborne toxin. For a moment, Henry thought Dad was broken and that he’d won; so ‘show time’ must have been the order to go airborne. By the time Dad was rescued, it must have been too late to call them back. If the toxin persists in the environment for decades, altering the DNA of The Marked again will kill them all.”
“They dropped hundreds of metric tons of the stuff,” Amelia says. “Test any surface on earth you like, and you’ll probably find trace amounts. Every exposure causes a little more damage to The Marked, especially former Cult Hunters who received injections.”
“That doesn’t explain the ice cores.” Zera says. “How would a sample of the old toxin help find a cure for people marked by the new toxin?”
“Antivenin,” I say. “Some antivenins are cross-reactive, so you were hoping the old toxin could be used to cure the new toxin.”
Amelia looks at me.
“Paulson family magic,” she says. “I even broke Federal and international law and tried to make my own toxin to produce an antivenin, but they either killed the test animals too quickly or weren’t cross-reactive. That’s how I lost my job as head of the Center for World Health. I worked on it with a private company for a while, but I gave up when my husband, Ted, died.”
My head snaps to a picture on the mantle, which I pick up and ask the computer to transfer to the screen. Amelia’s husband is pictured in a hospital bed.
“Computer, zoom in on the logo on Mr. Lake’s hospital gown,” I say.
Under the logo read the words “Bauer Corporation.”
“Did you work for Tyrone Bauer?” I ask.
“Yes. After the CWH let me go, he was very accommodating of my research ideas and arranged for Ted to be cared for in the building where I worked. Ted died there, just a few days after that picture was taken.”
Austin gives me his best ‘I told you so’ look. He still thinks Bauer is one of the good guys.
That’s not how I see this puzzle.
******
“Where to now?” Austin asks, once we’re alone in a tube car heading east.
“I need one more history lesson,” I say. “Did you notice that Amelia said nothing about the places on the map marked with red dots?”
“Why didn’t you ask?” Zera says.
“It’s something Dad taught me: when you’re solving a puzzle, always find the pieces yourself.”
I slip a com into my ear.
“Computer, check the news for the past eighteen years and tell me if the following locations all have something in common …”
I list off the locations of the red dots, which range from Everett, Washington to Marietta, Georgia and many points in between in North America, as well as points in France, Germany, Spain, Russia and China.
“Each location was the site of an attack by the environmental group ‘Nature’s Way’,” the pleasant voice replies.
“Show me an example,” I say.
The computer produces a video account of an attack, which shows a number of large airplanes that are on fire. The next two videos are of massive buildings burning, followed by ‘aftermath’ shots showing the charred remains of more airplanes.
“Why does ‘Nature’s Way’ destroy airplanes,” I ask.
“The stated goal of ‘Nature’s Way’ is to allow forest fires to burn naturally. The destroyed planes are all air tankers used in aerial firefighting.”
Air tankers?
“How many planes have they destroyed?” I ask.
“Over one thousand planes have been destroyed or disabled worldwide, most of them through sabotage of the engines.”
“How else do they hinder firefighting?” I ask. “Do they attack firefighters or spot-fire drones?
Do they destroy chainsaw or bulldozing drones?”
“There are no recorded attacks of those types by ‘Nature’s Way’,” the computer says.
I remove the com from my ear.
“Okay, so Amelia follows the news on environmental activism,” Zera says. “How does that tell us where to go next?”
“It doesn’t,” I say.
How can neither Zera nor Austin see the connection?